A Little Italian Restaraunt
by Meredith T. Tasaki
Summary: What would really happen if Yami met his ex-wife, and no Mary-Sues were involved? No Mary-Sues, no pairings even; not some weird wish-fufillment thing. I swear.


What would _really_ happen if Yami met his ex-wife?...  
  
Notes: 1. I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!. I don't know the guy who does. I have only a vague idea of the _name_ of the guy who does. An' if anyone now tries to sue me, I'll sue them back for suing me when I put a disclaimer. I'll yap about first amendment rights all I have to... Mua ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... ^^ I think I watch too many law-enforcement shows. ^^;;  
  
2. There's a sentence in Japanese later on. Don't worry, I got it from a song; I'm _not- one of those people who knows Japanese well enough to speak it and/or watch the original series. Unfortunately. ^^; The sentence translates to, 'It's too late to lament that we were deeply in love'. You'll know it when you see it. --And I don't own the aforementioned song either. ("The Real Folk Blues" from Cowboy Bebop)   
  
3. I _SWEAR_ there are no Mary-Sues here. Certainly no romance. If I'm wrong, please tell me. And if I am, feel free to chase after me with things, 'cause I'd deserve it. ^^;;  
  
~  
  
Silence. That was all there was. Then again, what had she expected?   
  
"...I didn't remember you until five minutes ago," he said, still staring out the window. "Forgive me if that insults you, but you may find consolation in the fact that I don't even remember my own name. Given that, can you tell me what I should call you?"  
  
"Janet will do," she said, slightly relieved. "And you? Which title have _you_ taken a fancy to?"  
  
"...If you're asking what you should call me, call me Yami."  
  
"Ah. Okay." She laughed, making a right turn. "Isn't this crazy? Three thousand years..."  
  
"Is that the number?"  
  
"Formerly married and we don't even know each other's names. Shouldn't even know we were married at all. In a way, I wish I didn't... No offense," she added hastily.  
  
"No, I remember your logic on that. What was it you said, 'Every blessing is a curse'... That's one of the wisest things I ever heard. I think." He let out a short, fustrated sigh. "And we agreed it worked the other way as well..."  
  
"Still does," she agreed. "Nice to know some things never change."  
  
"Only a few." He looked out the window helplessly.  
  
She pulled her car neatly into the parking-place. "And only the ones you think never will."  
  
She'd kept her half-cynical wisdom, he noted. Odd what didn't change.  
  
"C'mon. You pull that little lever there to open the door." She paused, waiting for him to succeed. "Wait, don't--!"  
  
She was too late. Yami was hanging in the seatbelts, yelling muffled curses.  
  
"That Motou kid doesn't take you for car rides?" She went over to his side of the car and unbuckled the seatbelt, serenely ignoring the fact that she was leaning over him. Yami promptly fell to the ground.  
  
"Arrgh..." he muttered.  
  
"Hmm; the years have taught you patience. Had this happened when I knew you, you would've been cursing a lot more..."  
  
"When you knew me, I hadn't even quite grown up..."  
  
"You? Are you kidding me? You were always grown up. Well, maybe just after you were about seven." She helped him up.  
  
"Well, could I afford not to be?" He brushed himself off, waiting a moment for his dignity to resolve itself.   
  
"I suppose you couldn't..."  
  
He smirked to himself. He _was_ quite lucky; that retort had been a bluff. He didn't really remember. And he had a feeling that the blocks of that memory had come long before the Puzzle... He'd blocked it himself.  
  
"Well, don't just stand there all day; come on." She led him through the doors. "You'll like this place. I think. It's not easy to find a small Italian place here. But we can talk about anything. The people who work here are as half-crazy as we are. Seem," she amended, for his sake.  
  
She sighed as she noted that he was busy gaping at the room to listen to her. Well, the blender _would_ be kind of interesting, she allowed grudgingly. But for god's sake...  
  
She sighed. "Aishiteta to nageku ni wa amararimo toki wa sugite shimatta... It's _far_ too late..."   
  
"...Sorry..." He shook his head.   
  
"That's okay..." She sighed. "Yumiko..."  
  
"Oh!" A waitress perked up at hearing her name called. "Hi! Y'got another date, Janet-person?"  
  
"Sort of..."  
  
"'Kaysies!" The waitress beamed with crazy joy. "Where d'ya want to sit? Besides of course the corner booth. Boss-person says you can never sit there again."  
  
Janet felt Yami's questioning glance at her and blushed. "It's a long story... Just anywhere, Yumi."  
  
"A'right!" She led them to a booth. "Ah yeah, Jacob's the cook today, so I wouldn't try the alfredo."  
  
"Oh, thanks for the tip. We'll need menus."  
  
"Ah yeah!" The waitress handed them two. "Here y'go, call me when you're ready! Y'might have t'call a bit loud, Jacob's using the blender..." Her eyes went hazy. "Piiiiiinnnnkkk..."  
  
"Yumi."  
  
"Oh!" She jumped. "Well, call me!" She skipped off.  
  
Yami stared after her. "Is she...completely...?"  
  
"Sane? Kind of. Yumiko's just... Well, like Jacob and Renami explained her to me; she's an epiphany. They're kinda a package deal, those three. They're working here because, something about their being fired from their jobs unless their boss manages to strike the fear of God into enough people... They have one _crazy_ story. Something about a many-times-almost-taken-over company called KaibaCorp and a card game... I think they're making it up..."  
  
Something stirred blurrily in Yami's more recent memories. "I doubt it..."  
  
"Anyway. What shall you get?"  
  
He sighed. "I would not know what anything in this menu was even if someone threw it at me. What's good?"  
  
She stifled a laugh. "Okay then. Yumi!"  
  
"Oh! Janet-person!" The double-pigtailed waitress bounced back to them, notebook at the ready, amber eyes insanely serious. "What'll it be?"  
  
"Sweet tea and sausage calzone. Him too."  
  
Yumiko nodded, flickering a glance at Yami. Suddenly, a warm, serene look came into her eyes. "So. You're finally starting to catch up. Took you forever..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Hmm? Whaddaya mean?" She looked at him with a warmly innocent look, the kind that made you sure that you were right and you both knew it, but you would _never_ be able to prove it.   
  
"Oh Ra, nevermind..." He buried his head in his hands.  
  
"All right, I'll just take 'im your order!" The waitress skimmed away.  
  
"So. Yami, is it?" Janet crossed her arms. "How're you doing these days?"  
  
"Relatively well, I suppose... Considering that I was locked in the Shadow Realm for a few milennia... Not all that plesant... But it could have been far worse... You likely remember my talent..."  
  
"I always thought it was luck." She snorted. "Or maybe they just didn't like you."  
  
"That occured to me as well. But can we skip the petty conversation? What are we here for?"  
  
"...To talk... To figure out where we stand."  
  
"Well, we're not getting back together again. Is that a disappointment?"  
  
"Are you _crazy_?! It's a _relief_!" She let out her breath to illustrate her point.   
  
"So why are we here if that's settled?"  
  
"Well..." She sighed. "It wasn't."  
  
"So..." He fidgeted a little. "What happened after I... Whatever I did..."  
  
"Died?"  
  
"Yeah, something like that." He sighed.  
  
"Well, lessee, I got remarried about two months later..." She flushed. "Well, it's not like I had much of a choice... There had to be a new king..."  
  
He smiled lopsidedly. "Of course. Egypt's future. Eternally the first concern."   
  
"I was angry at you for a while..." She folded her napkin. "Kind of selfish of you, ne, to run off and save the world like that... 'Cause you'd understood me, and anyone like that--I know by now to never take that lightly. I'd learned it even then. Yeah, I guess I loved you. Of course, I figured that out a long time after we married and the thought of saying it didn't really come into my mind until a few weeks after you died."  
  
"Don't blame you..."  
  
"Sweet teas!" The waitress swooped in, putting their drinks in front of them and leaving in one graceful move.  
  
"...I missed you for a while..." she admitted. "But I learned to live with it, even if no one then ever knew me like you did. One of the blessing sides of this; I knew there was hope. I knew when that life ended, I would almost surely come back again. And surely someone else would be a bit like you..."  
  
She continued to fiddle with her napkin. "And I was fine... My next life was in Greece. You know, I think I believed in that religion, simply for the myth of the river Lethe. It was said, I believe, that souls in Hades--dead souls--could be reborn, but first they'd have to drink of the Lethe's water, so they'd forget their former lives. I took a fancy to that. Thought maybe I was immune to that water somehow. It seemed almost true..."  
  
"Almost?"  
  
"I'm eternally a skeptic..." She smiled sadly. "Paper crane?" She held out the origami bird she'd made out of habit with the napkin.  
  
"Sure..." He took it from her, looking at it with intrest. "I've heard of these. They say if you fold a thousand, you get a wish. Have you tested that theory?"  
  
"What for?" She smiled. "I'm actually doing really well. Wishes are for people who want something. I like my life the way it is. Even if Mom _does_ bug me about getting a steady boyfriend." She laughed, and Yami followed her lead, uncertain.  
  
"And you?" she asked.  
  
"Well. Considering that I'm trapped in what is essentially an oversized, magical piece of jewelery, that I can't remember my real name, and that a large portion of the people surrounding me are either evil or idiots, or both... I'm doing quite well. How, I don't know. But I am."  
  
"I'm glad to hear it." She smiled at him softly.  
  
"Food's here!" The waitress swished over, passing them their plates.   
  
Yami stared after her as she left. "She knows something..."  
  
"Yami? Shut up and eat."  
  
Having nothing better to do, he obeyed.  
  
"Y'like it?"  
  
He nodded, plesantly surprised.  
  
"Yeah, it's one of my favorites... Like the alfredo... When Jacob isn't cooking..."  
  
"I heard that!!" someone yelled.  
  
"Aw, don't take it so hard; your alfredo _is_ awful," they faintly heard someone consoling him.  
  
"Think if I fed it to the Board, they'd die?"  
  
"JACOB!"  
  
"Whaaaaaaaat?"  
  
"Nevermind..."  
  
"It'd save someone else the trouble..."  
  
"JACOB!"  
  
"What now?!"  
  
Janet laughed. "They always do that..."  
  
"And they are?"  
  
"Renami and Jacob, dynamic duo in Yumiko's triumvirate." She took another bite of her calzone nonchalantly.  
  
"Interesting."  
  
There was relative silence for the next few minutes as they concentrated on eating.  
  
"...Yami?"  
  
"Mm-hmm?" He looked up.   
  
"...Did you miss me?"  
  
He bit his lip, casting around for the memory. "For a while... How long, I can't be sure. It's hard to mark passage of time in there. It might have been a week, it might have been a millenium. I'm sorry, my memory is murky."  
  
"Must be awful..." She sighed. "And yet, in a way, I'd give anything to have that..."  
  
"Curse in a blessing, blessing in curse..."  
  
"Can you believe there was ever a time when we thought our love would last forever?" She took a sip of her drink.  
  
"Barely."   
  
"But it didn't..." She looked out the window. "If there's one thing you learn, it's that both everything and nothing change... Emotions fade. I guess that's a mercy. When my brother died... Another life... I thought I'd never get over it. But I did. It faded. But it is still there."  
  
She looked back at him. "That's what I wanted to say. I don't love you anymore. But I'll never forget that I did. And I'll always think of you a bit differently than everyone else. 'Cause that's all we can do. All I should do. In memoriam. It may have faded, but it deserves memory. 'Cause I'll always love you a little."  
  
He smiled. "I agree..."  
  
Now that the great speech was over, she flushed a bit and looked away again. "Apparently my taste in men isn't so bad. You were good even for Egypt."  
  
"I'm flattered," he said dryly.  
  
There was quiet for a moment as Janet looked into the moonlight.  
  
"So we're settled," she said quietly. "Amicable divorce. Any court, of course, would allow it, on basis of seperation for three thousand years."  
  
"Mm-hmm." Yami nodded.  
  
"Check." Yumiko took up their plates and set down the bill. "Oh, unless you want dessert."  
  
Janet waved it off. "I've got ice-cream at home."  
  
"You always say that..." The waitress grinned and slipped away.  
  
"Don't worry, oh no, don't, don't, _I'll_ pay..." Janet got out her purse with a small smirk. "Motou kid doesn't give you an allowance?"  
  
"A what?"  
  
Her smirk grew larger. "Obviously." She set a few bills down under the salt-shaker. "You want to stay?"  
  
Yami shook his head. "Yugi has a paranoid fear that I'm going to start dating you or something... If we're gone too long, gods know what he'll think..."  
  
"Mmm." Janet decided to ignore all possible implications of those remarks and rose. "C'mon, then."  
  
He followed her, of course. It was a bit of a reversal, but she was the expert here; suddenly, she was the one with all the power. She smiled. She liked that...  
  
"Just keep the change," she told the guy at the cash register, who was trying to give her her thirty-five cents in change. "C'mon, Yami, let's get out of here." She had the mercy to wait until they were out the doors before adding, "And don't get trapped in your seatbelt this time!"  
  
He growled. Obviously, getting tangled in those things, natural as it seemed, was regarded as a stupid thing to do. Wonderful.  
  
"I was _kidding_..." She slipped into the driver's seat, turning on the engine.  
  
"Awfully funny..."  
  
"Actually, it was."  
  
He moaned. "Look, don't let this become common knowledge, all right? Please?"  
  
"Of _course_ not. I have more regard for you than that." She paused, concentrating on looking for traffic.  
  
"Oh..." There was a silence. "...After all you've been through... What do _you_ still believe in?"  
  
"You answer first."  
  
He sighed. "I guess... I have faith in faith itself...Not much else I've seen to have faith in... Besides of course darkness. I have no choice but to believe in that."  
  
"You have faith in faith..." she mused. "I guess that covers that 'Heart of the Cards' stuff."  
  
"Yes. Now. What about you?"  
  
"Me?..." She smiled softly. "I have faith that it will all turn out all right in the end... I have faith in music... And..." She laughed. "'One thing I still believe in, a miracle romance'... I still believe that someday... Someone will come, and our love _won't_ fade over time. And then I'll be able to find them again the next time, and the next, and until these lives stop and after, I'll be able to find them and we'll still be in love..."  
  
She laughed. "Silly, isn't it. This is your stop."  
  
"Oh." He looked out. "Well, I guess this is goodbye."  
  
"I'll be seeing Yugi every weekday."  
  
"But still... It's probably goodbye."  
  
"And that's okay." She unbuckled the sealbelt.  
  
"I could've done that!"  
  
"Mm-hmm."  
  
"...How do you open this door...?"  
  
"The handle over there," she said smugly.  
  
He shot her a light glare as he opened the door. "I... Well... Goodbye, then."  
  
"Goodbye, Yami. May you be happier than you were."  
  
He nodded and slipped into the shop. She watched him for just a moment, slightly sad that it was indeed over. But then she drove away, humming her song, the one she'd quoted earlier. She hadn't been lying when she'd said she believed in that... Someday...  
  
The door closed behind Yami.  
  
"Oh. Home so early?" Yugi glared at him. Joey, over for the night, looked away, embarassed.  
  
"Of course." He met ice with ice, annoyed that Yugi was still thinking along _those_ idiotic lines. "What did you think, I was dating her?"  
  
"Um, with all due respect, takin' someone t'dinner _is_ usually a date," Joey said carefully.  
  
"Well, I'm not." Yami stepped over, noting that Yugi and Joey were having a duel.   
  
"Oh, whatever. Go ahead and marry my English teacher, what do I care?"  
  
Yami glared at him lazily. "For your information, that was the _opposite_ of our business. Please. I am _not_ dating your teacher."  
  
"Then what were you doin'?" Joey asked, and immediately prayed he wouldn't regret it.  
  
Yami sat down. "Getting an amicable divorce. Hmm. Very interesting. I wish I'd been here." He looked at the cards casually.  
  
Yugi stared at him. "A _divorce_?!"  
  
He shrugged. "Technically I suppose we were already, but she wanted to talk. Whose turn is it?"  
  
"His," Joey said calmly, as Yugi was still gaping. "Friendly divorce. I woulda thought that was one of them, um, oxymorons. Cool. Nice t'know."  
  
"_Divorce_..." Yugi shook his head. "I'm sorry, Yami, I don't know what got into me..."  
  
"That's fine... Hmm... Maybe you should--"  
  
"Yaaamiiii... I can do this myself..."  
  
And so something was ended, much more peacefully than such things normally are.  
  
"What about--"  
  
"YAAAMIII!"  
  
And I'd like to say they lived happily ever after, but ever after is such a long time...Who can predict the future?   
  
But they lived happily right then...  
  
~ 


End file.
